DeKalb County Commission Resisting Any Additional Tax on Residents
Decatur Metro | January 6, 2010The common thread through the two of the three AJC articles on last night’s DeKalb County Commission meeting? No new taxes!
Though MARTA is a stated top goal for the commission this year, and they support the proposed 10-county penny tax for the struggling public transportation system, they can’t currently get behind the bill because it asks Fulton and DeKalb to put up a second penny in sales tax.
CEO Burrell Ellis explains…
“We’ve got other pressing needs in our infrastructure and don’t want to be saddled with another penny,” Ellis told legislators.
That money is needed for roads, public safety, parks and other county services, he said.
And if the state were to impose the extra penny, commissioners stated they were ready to ask for a referendum to rescind the current penny tax.
But while the commission and the CEO may agree that there’s no extra money for MARTA, they don’t see eye-to-eye on closing the County’s budget gap. You see, the CEO’s proposed budget includes an 11% tax hike in addition to $23 million in budget cuts. But the commission wants no part of raising the millage rate and is asking the county finance director to find another $30 million to cut. Director Mike Bell responded thusly, as reported by the AJC…
“We’ve done almost everything we can, but yes ma’am,” director Mike Bell responded. “If we do no millage rate adjustment, you will have to do substantial cutting and have 600-700 people take an early retirement, or you just do a reduction in force.”
Tax hike or job cuts.
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DeKalb County needs to look to the future and not moan about the past. The penny sales tax is needed for transportation in the Metro Atlanta area. Even though Fulton and DeKalb have been paying for MARTA for 30 years they have also benefited from it’s service. And we won’t see any additional “premium” transit in the region unless there is a new source of funding. This DeKalb resident is fully behind a new regional sales tax for transportation.
Me too. The regional sales tax for transportation will be used for all sorts of projects including MARTA and bottlenecks on 285, I-20, I-85 and I-75. Georgia spends less per capita on transportation than every other state except Tennesee. The transit fix begins with this transportation bill. The entire transportation problem isn’t fixed, but this is a start. All the bill does is to permit a regional referendum for the region to decide if it wants to add a penny sales tax for a set of transportation improvements. Let the voters decide.
Can’t we just vote to take an equivalent year’s worth of penny sales tax money away from roads and give it to MARTA without increasing taxes on residents?
Pro Dem, if the bill is just for a regional referendum why would the commission be opposed already? Does just the notion of being associated with something that COULD become a “tax increase” frighten them?
I don’t know why they are opposed to it becoming a referendum. It could be they are jealous of not having the flexibility of other counties to raise a penny for infrastructure projects because DeKalb has a Marta penney and Host penney to reduce property taxes. Who knows Burrell Ellis may still think that building a Falcons stadium in Doraville is a good use for a penney sales tax.
The regional bill will allow the Commission to review the proposed projects and decide whether they are a good deal or not. If the Commission doesn’t think the projects are sufficient for DeKalb, the Commission can opt out of participating in the referendum. It makes no sense to opose the legislation at this point.
Fulton and DeKalb Counties have both expressed their displeasure with such a bill because they are bitter about supporting MARTA for the past 30 years by themselves. Like Pro Dem says, a big part of it is the lack of flexibility with the sales tax. From what I understand they would look upon any transit use of the funds as double taxing its citizens. They have a decent point but I think it is a bit myopic. A better fix would be for the state to dedicate the additional 1% of gasoline sales tax that goes to the general fund to support transit in the state (including operations) and keep the regional transportation tax for capacity expansions.